Just Tired
by puppypersonLOTR107
Summary: Blaine's feeling tired. It's more than that, really, but nobody else knows. And it won't last forever, right? Dalton, pre-Kurt's arrival.


Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.

Blaine lay on his bed, listening to the commentary track on The Phantom of the Opera in his dorm room at Dalton. It was Sunday afternoon, and he had planned to get a lot of things done today. Some reading, some studying, maybe hanging out with some friends. But it wasn't looking like any of that was going to happen.

Blaine felt tired. He hadn't been terribly active the day before, and he'd gotten a good eight hours' sleep the night before. But he was tired. He'd gotten up for breakfast and had a good time chatting with his Warbler buddies, but a few hours later he felt the energy starting to fade. Lunch had consisted of a chocolate bar that David had offered him; this wasn't a usual lunch choice but he went with it today since he didn't feel that hungry and nothing sounded particularly good, aside from the fruit juice he'd had several glasses of.

An hour or two later, Blaine decided he was too tired to surf the web anymore at his desk. That led to where he was now; curled up with a blanket and pillow on his bed, half-listening to the commentary playing from the DVD player in his laptop.

Why was he so tired? He knew why, sort of. At least he knew it wasn't unexpected at this point. He'd been feeling more tired than usual the last two weeks, especially the most recent four or five days. He'd been able to push through and accomplish what he needed to, but now that it was the weekend and matters were less pressing (it was a light homework weekend and he'd finished his on Friday after school), it was just too hard to summon up the motivation.

Blaine rubbed his head as it ached vaguely; the look of his surroundings seemed kind of detached, as he looked around, as though he was half-asleep. This wasn't normal for him, for all it was familiar. He was starting to feel fairly frustrated with this state of affairs. He wasn't miserable, but he wasn't happy, because who wants to feel like lying in bed all afternoon when they're not even sick?

Realizing he'd forgotten to take his pill (he rarely called them by their name in his mind) that morning when he woke up, he'd taken it after "lunch." Blaine was on the lowest dose available, since he'd been really uncomfortable with the idea of taking medication for this. What if people ever knew? He'd never told anyone. His parents didn't know, nor did any of his Dalton friends. He would never have judged anyone for taking antidepressants, but the thought of anyone knowing he did…that was the last thing he wanted. All he wanted was for the pills to give him a bit of an edge towards being…he wasn't sure exactly what; maybe peaceful? He wanted to not have to work so hard to concentrate, so hard to keep going, so hard to not wish he didn't have to keep trying. Life was just too hard sometimes, and made him too tired, and the pills had helped with that over the past year. They didn't make everything okay, but they helped even things out just enough that even though things were still hard, they were more manageable. The difficulties in his life weren't fixed, but he felt a little less overwhelmed and a little more like his emotions weren't ruling his life. Or the lack of them, depending on the day. At any rate, things had been better, though not perfect. But the last few weeks, it was as though things were shifting back downwards a bit. It had been just over two years since the death of his grandmother, the one person who had meant everything to Blaine. A year ago he'd read a blog online of another teen who'd had some rough times in his life, and had been helped by taking antidepressants. Four months later, Blaine had summoned up the willpower and courage to make an appointment and ask for the medication. The doctor had had him speak with a counselor a few times, and they determined that he should do well with the lowest dose of the medication. They'd said, however, that they'd see how things went, and if Blaine didn't feel like it was helping enough he could go ahead and take the next highest dose; a whole pill instead of a half. Blaine had been determined that if he had to take medication, it would be the lowest dose possible. He would get by with that if need be; happily, the low dose had done the job rather well. But these past weeks it seemed to be less so.

This lack of concentration was really hard to cope with. He was a high school student, after all, and concentrating on his studies was a pretty key necessity for his existence. Blaine couldn't decide whether the creeping exhaustion was the reason for the difficulty in focusing, or whether the dread of the difficulty focusing triggered the exhaustion.

He tried to play his guitar, but even that seemed to take too much effort. Feeling just slightly reckless (which was an extreme amount of recklessness on the Blaine-scale), he went to the back of his sock drawer to his pill bottle and downed a whole pill; double his usual dose. It felt dangerous, but his doctor had said it was okay…he would just try it for a few days and see if it helped.

But it wouldn't do any good today. Blaine knew these things took time to kick in. He flopped on his bed and listened as he heard boys tromping down the hallway. Nick, Jeff, Wes and David burst in the door, faces red from the chilly air outside.

"Blaine! What are you doing in here lazing around? We just had an awesome round of capture the flag in the courtyard!" Nick said as he hit pause on the still-going commentary track.

Blaine sat up. "Did you now? Well, I'll have to catch it next time. Just feeling tired today, you know how it goes."

The other boys nodded, and went off on various stories about times when they'd slept late or lazed around a whole weekend day. Blaine leaned his head against the wall as he sat on his bed, watching his buddies chatter. They were good friends. He was thankful for the relationships he'd developed since coming to Dalton. Sometimes the thought surfaced: what if he told them? David had been dealing with a situation with a friend from home a couple of months ago, where the friend had been having a hard time and admitted to having thoughts of suicide. David had appreciated the support of his Dalton friends during this time when he was worried for his friend, and a recurring theme had been that he didn't understand why the friend hadn't told David about the hard time he was going through and how he was feeling about it. Blaine sympathized, but empathized more with the friend, if he was honest with himself. David was so open with his feelings. He never seemed afraid to talk about how he was feeling, or to show how he was feeling, especially with his close friends. Blaine often felt a bit awkward with how open David was, but he thought it was great for David to feel that comfortable. It seemed healthier than the habits he'd developed himself over the years. Blaine's family was happy enough, but they didn't make a habit of sharing feelings. Nobody had really told him not to be upset about something that was significant, but if his parents had considered whatever was upsetting Blaine to be minor, they had sometimes told him to pull it together and get on with whatever came next. He wasn't sure if it was that or the pain of watching his grandmother battle cancer, losing ground week by week until her eventual death that taught him to hide his emotions so effectively. Perhaps the combination. At any rate, here he was: not really a sharer of his emotions, even with those he trusted most.

What would happen if he did tell? If he told that before coming to Dalton he'd been so miserable that he spent the majority of every hour of every day wishing he could bring himself to end his life? If he told them that when he first arrived at Dalton, a month or so in, he found himself marveling that he was only wishing he were dead about once a day, instead of numerous times an hour? How would they feel about him if they knew that while he'd never cut himself, he'd modified the practice he'd hard of others doing? There was still a tiny, barely noticeable discoloration on the outer edge of his wrist where he'd dug his fingernails into the skin when the emotions had become too much. Blaine had never let blood loose, but he'd considered many a time what excuse he'd use if anyone saw him scratching there or saw the redness or smallish scraped areas, and asked about it. Noone had ever noticed.

Or even just the cleanest part of it: that there was something wrong in his brain, something in the chemicals that was made better by this drug. That his ability to concentrate, to be himself, was to some extent reliant on fixing what was wrong with him. He himself couldn't cope, he'd chickened out, said uncle, the whole deal. Taken the easy way out. He couldn't even consider that he'd be classified under a mental illness, because that thought was just too much. He couldn't bear to think of his friends looking at him differently.

On the other hand. He took allergy pills. This dust allergy had been going on since he was in fifth grade. He'd been tired then, too; somehow they'd linked that with an allergy, and the pills had helped then. That was something wrong with him too, something chronic that needed to be regulated by an outer source.

Blaine realized that on occasion, he'd felt extra tired when he hadn't been eating properly. He'd been busy the last week, and eaten a lot of fruit and sandwiches, which was usually fine; but then despite having had a good breakfast that morning, chocolate and fruit juice probably didn't cut it for lunch.

Jeff grabbed Nick around the waist, and pulled him down onto Blaine's armchair so that the two were half play-fighting, half cuddling. Blaine smiled to see them so energetic and happy. He was so glad these two had found each other. Of course, there was that part of him that was jealous that his buddy Nick had found his Jeff before Blaine had found anyone, or even had any prospects. And this part added to the strain of everything else he was feeling today, but he put it aside as usual and tried to press on.

Something to eat. Maybe that would help. Blaine answered a schoolwork-related question from Wes, then pointed out to the boys that the book they needed was at the library and it was only open for another half hour that afternoon. Smiling at his buddies and promising to watch Aladdin with them later that evening, he closed the door behind them. Blaine sighed, ran his fingers through his hair, then raided his supply of more substantial snacks. He had some cereal and some protein bars, and ate some of each steadily despite not really feeling hungry. If this would break off this weariness, it would be worth it.

Chewing, Blaine sighed. Nick was usually the one who "looked after" Blaine, although Blaine tended to look after everyone else also. What was unfortunate was that while Nick did take the time to occasionally ask Blaine if he was all right, or if something was bothering him, generally speaking Nick asked this when Blaine was literally feeling fine. Here and there Nick would ask when Blaine was feeling down or depressed, but (and Blaine knew this end of it was his choice) Blaine usually just brushed it off as tiredness in those moments, never daring to share what lay deeper. He wasn't sure how Nick tended to get things backwards in trying to read his mood. He had been told he was hard to read, but didn't understand exactly how these things worked. Maybe he'd spent too much time schooling his face to be calm in the face of being shouted at by his dad or being upset and scared in the hospital with his grandmother when she'd been sick or dying. This thought always made him wish that he had been able to stay more like David, so open and expressive and honest. But he really didn't see how he could have gotten through those times without learning to wear his mask.

After lazing around for another hour or two, Blaine started to feel some energy return. Probably the food, then. On weekdays mealtimes were more regular and he was generally active enough to build up an appetite, but he guessed that on the weekends since his schedule was more free, he'd have to be more intentional with eating on days when his stomach didn't demand food in the same way as it usually did.

Blaine got up and grabbed his slippers and headed over to Nick and Jeff's room to join the others for the movie. He felt better, not so exhausted that he wanted to lie in bed, but still unable to focus on reading or getting ahead in schoolwork without triggering that terrible weariness. He hoped that spending some time chilling and hanging out would make tomorrow a better day.


End file.
